Navy SEAL Says Psychedelics Opened Door to Spiritual Realm He Regrets

The host worked in the psychedelics industry between leaving a first company and starting the podcast. This work was focused on mental health applications.

The experience in the psychedelics business gave the host direct exposure to the therapeutic promise of these substances.

He was told ibogaine was an intense, lengthy treatment in a therapeutic setting where several cases showed one dose curing addiction.

The prospect struck him as remarkable at the time.

Ryan was raising a six-month-old son and felt trapped in constant business thoughts, unable to be present with his family. He was taking pharmaceutical sleeping medications and Adderall while having quit alcohol and cocaine.

After one ibogaine session, he quit drinking, stopped all sleep medications, and discontinued Adderall—changes he describes as effortless. He became able to focus on his wife and son without his mind elsewhere.

The shift was immediate and sustained over years without relapse or substitution.

He maintained his sobriety and eliminated all pharmaceutical use for more than four years after that first experience.

He claims to have developed no new vices in that span.

Approximately three months before the interview, the host undertook a second ibogaine journey.

Unlike the first experience, this second ibogaine journey did not go well.

This experience contrasted sharply with the first, which he had regarded as beneficial.

The episode left him convinced he had accessed a realm of suffering.

Ryan took ibogaine as a pill sourced from a group in Gabon, Africa, which he describes as the most powerful psychedelic available. The facility added 5-MeO-DMT—another powerful psychedelic—for daily dosing in the day after the ibogaine journey.

He references recent discussions of faith while acknowledging his own spiritual reconversion.

Ryan took ibogaine twice, psilocybin multiple times, and 5-MeO-DMT multiple times. His first experience earned what he calls a healthy respect and led him to prepare carefully for each session.

Over time, he forced himself to relax his protocols after observing others using these substances casually. He used psilocybin to work through difficult business decisions, describing journeys that revealed business partners' true motivations and revealed the consequences of future choices.

The substances became problem-solving tools for business, family, relationships, and friendships—a pattern of increasing reliance that loosened his original disciplined approach.

Ryan came to believe psychedelics allow access to spiritual domains humans should not enter. He began praying before and during sessions as a protective measure.

As his commitment to Christianity deepened, his caution about the substances intensified.

The experience lasted about an hour and a half and involved no visual imagery of fire or typical representations of hell. Instead, Ryan describes absolute emptiness accompanied by terror and anxiety unlike anything he had felt before.

He felt abandoned by God and Christ—a spiritual void rather than demonic imagery.

The intensity paralleled what he terms the most extreme exorcism imaginable.

Ryan had explicitly asked for solitude during the experience and told a companion not to be present. Despite this, a Marine Corps veteran checked on him after hearing sounds of distress, unsure whether Ryan was harming others.

The witness reported seeing Ryan's body move in configurations the veteran—despite extensive combat and military experience—said he had never witnessed before. Ryan avoided social interaction for weeks after the event, withdrawing from his normal circles.

Ryan acknowledges potential benefits of psychedelics but argues they open users to a realm humans were never meant to access spiritually, leaving them defenseless.

He describes this state as being spiritually naked in an unknown domain where bidirectional access exists—meaning entities in that realm can reach the user as freely as the user can perceive them.

In the months after the experience, Ryan reports nightmares, odd coincidences, and synchronicities—a series of dark and supernatural occurrences he struggles to articulate publicly.

He credits these events with drawing him much closer to Christ and accelerating his return to the Catholic faith, suggesting the suffering itself became a catalyst for spiritual commitment.

The nightmares became destructive to his family life, triggering Ryan to reconnect with the Catholicism he had abandoned in his youth.

He views the Catholic Church as one of the few institutions equipped with understanding of the spiritual realm he now believes he has accessed. His return was motivated by theology—not doctrine alone, but the Church's apparent grasp of forces he now fears.

Ryan experienced a vivid, disturbing dream about a bishop he had never met. Following the dream, he began a prayer regimen called the Libra Cristo, performed at designated times.

While reciting the St. Michael's prayer—a Catholic prayer against evil—a picture frame detached from the wall and fell.

The timing and unexplained nature of the object's movement reinforced his conviction that psychedelics had opened a door through which something could now act.

Ryan attended mass with his friend and mentor, whom he calls Hendo. Upon taking communion, he experienced an immediate and severe physical reaction—his face felt like it was burning and displayed visible redness.

He notes these occurrences have followed a sequential pattern for three months, with each event intensifying his interpretation of spiritual conflict and his commitment to prayer and Catholic practice.

He argues proponents do not want the downsides discussed.

He suggests psychedelics may lift a veil on a realm humans were not designed to access, though he acknowledges uncertainty about whether psychedelics themselves are the ultimate source or merely the trigger for phenomena with a different origin.

His core complaint is that a conversation with two sides—benefits and harms—has become one where dissent is treated as betrayal rather than testimony.